“A podcast is like a Swiss army knife, it can accomplish so many objectives…”

 

Dan Sanchez is the Director of Audience Growth for Sweet Fish, a podcast agency for B2B brands. Equipped with his MBA and a career that has crossed design, technology, marketing and education, Dan is ready to teach others how to grow their audience in a digital age. He contributes regularly to the B2B Growth podcast, Linkedin, and his own blog at danchez.com. 

Dan’s also an avid runner, yerba mate drinker, and resides in Nashville with his wife and three princesses.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• Is podcasting appropriate for all B2B businesses?
• How podcasting is the easiest networking hack to use.
• What do most B2B businesses get wrong when it comes to creating a podcast?
• How should clients evaluate podcast agencies and vendors?
• How to measure the impact generated from a podcast?
• The key takeaways Dan shares from hosting over 200 podcast episodes.

And more!

 

Connect with Dan via LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalmarketingdan/

Full Episode Transcript:

Kenny Soto 0:02  

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the people Digital Marketing podcast with your host, Kenny Soto, and today’s special guest, Dan Sanchez. Hi, Dan, how are you?

 

Dan Sanchez 0:14  

Doing Well, Kenny, thanks for having me on.

 

Kenny Soto 0:16  

Awesome. So, as I do with all my other guest’s interviews, I think the best way for us to get a sense of your expertise in the world of podcasting and b2b is to start off with a very setting scene question, if you will, which would be how did you get into digital marketing in the first place, man,

 

Dan Sanchez 0:36  

Dude it’s so many baby steps like so many other people. But essentially, I was a graphic designer. And I felt I even got into graphic design because I wanted to be an artist, right? That was the only class I liked in high school. I’m like, I failed out Spanish. They put me in art class, and I fell in love with that medium. I just liked making stuff. 

 

And I find that a lot of other marketers, especially my ones on the more creative side like, We just liked making stuff we liked making painting, drawing, sculpting, stuff, I even love jewelry making and even consider that as a field, but I loved making. And then when I discovered graphic design, and how you could be persuasive, through what you were making, it wasn’t just there to be beautiful, or to accent an aesthetic, it’s a tone you could use to communicate things and to persuade people and I liked that part of it. 

 

So I got into graphic design, I’m like, I’m gonna be the best designer there ever was, you know, you know, when you’re, like 20, an idealist, you’re trying to be the best. And then, I don’t know, I started designing social media at that time, it was like 2010. And Facebook was just frickin taken off. And everybody had Facebook pages. And they all needed profile pictures, logos, like, cover photos, and content for their Facebook page showed like, Okay, I’ll design this for you. 

 

And I started getting into social media marketing and people like me need a website. So I figured out how to code. You know, how to set up WordPress. And,n of course, to do WordPress, well, you kind of had to slowly learn how to code. So you end up learning HTML, and you end up learning CSS. And then people, they just slow requests kept coming. I just felt like this obligated one. 

 

I was like the young person, the 20, something year old on a marketing team, and there’d be like, can someone figure out an email the guy who did email left? I’m like, Oh, well, I guess I do websites, emails, and similar. And then you’re figuring out a list and, you know, making the mistake, every young mark, email marketer makes sending it too early. When it’s before it’s done. You’re like, no, that leaves and you’re like, have to go to your boss and be like, Hey, I just emailed 10,000 people. 

 

Rebecca is awesome. It was supposed to be a joke. But Rebecca is the intern. Oh, man. Then I got into text message marketing because that was similar. And that person left I just ended up doing I ended up doing all the digital stuff. Because all the older marketers didn’t want to. Lo and behold, that became the thing. 

 

And now digital marketing is just kind of, well, marketing. Yeah, that was because I was the only one eager enough to learn and read all the manuals and read books and find forums to figure out how to do all that stuff. I ended up developing a skill with digital. And I went from platform to platform and learning how to run Google Ads was a big one for me, and Facebook ads got really heavy into that. 

 

And that became huge, like PPC like sending paid traffic, targeted paid traffic to a landing page with a good call to action, and then a nurture sequence of emails. When I figured that out in like 2012. I was like, This is amazing. And because you could split test the heck out of it. And now I’ll send you can be creative and actually have real data and tell you, hey, this worked better than this. 

 

So who knew that design that I thought was really sick? Like didn’t work? They liked the uglier one. Oh, you know, and that’s through that process, I became way less romantic about graphic design and the things that designers get romantic about but how good something looks because I started to find out oh, you know what, sometimes the market doesn’t frickin care how good your logo is. They want a frickin incredible offer. 

 

And they need it explained in chunks in a way that their brain can handle and gets them excited about it. Right, you give them little breadcrumbs that come along and I started just becoming a marketer from a designer and a web designer I cared less about how something looked though I cared I still care you know professionalism and visual communications that thing and it’s too should be taken seriously branding you know, it’s all plays into one thing but I cared a lot less after that.

 

And I honestly fell hard for marketing. I was like, I’ve been hard after marketing for over 10 years now. And I’m still not done maybe like I’m starting to get into probably the next stage because if you start to dig digging deep enough into marketing, sometimes you find out that it’s not the marketing. That’s the problem. You keep digging deeper. 

 

Why are people buying why aren’t people buying you’re like, oh, shoot, it’s because the product sucks, or the service fault is that kind of the marketers but kind of not You know, you start to find out oh, shoot like we have this awesome product. The market doesn’t want it. Well, dang, we don’t have a product-market fit. 

 

So what’s now but now I’m not even into marketing questions anymore. I’m into entrepreneurial questions now. It’s a whole like you go deep enough into the marketing rabbit hole, you’ll pop out the other side, and entrepreneurs land real fast. So now I find myself wrestling with Alex or mozzies. 

 

Like my man, like if I don’t know if you’ve discovered him on YouTube or other social channels now he’s fantastic. You’re like, Man, this guy. He’s a fantastic marketer, but really, he’s an entrepreneur at heart that knows how to talk and break down how to discern a market and what they want. How did they develop and deliver a Grand Slam offer that people are willing to pay a lot for? That’s the kind of stuff that’s got me excited now. 

 

So I find myself starting to tiptoe into entrepreneurialism, but I love marketing. It’s a fantastic game, it never, it never gets boring, because as soon as you figure it out, it dies. And then you have to go and learn how to do it again and on a different platform and a different way. But the principles stay the same. And I think those you know, you still get better and better at it. If there’s a life where an RPG, you know, you level up along the way. So it’s good. So that’s the origin story. I guess.

 

Kenny Soto 6:16  

That’s a great origin story. And it brings about a question I’ve asked before, but the answer is always different. So I asked you, do you think that at the starting point level one, if you will, for taking the RPG route? Do you think that a generalist approach is recommended? Or should you find a specialty and dive into that as soon as possible?

 

Dan Sanchez 6:39  

Gosh, that’s a good question. I definitely went the general generalist route. But I didn’t just do the generalist route. I feel like people are generalists, but they’re like really shallow on all the topics where I like to read every single book I could find on like, and when I went deep and deep into Facebook ads, I read every book I could find I read all the blogs, I listened to all the podcasts. 

 

And there’s a period of like a year and a half where I did nothing but drink Facebook and the Facebook ad Kool-Aid man. And it’s that way for every topic. Like when I got into b2b When I joined sweet fish. I didn’t know what Account Based Marketing was. So I bought the 12 books that exist on the topic and I read them all. 

 

I talked to all the experts. Luckily, it’s one of the advantages of having a podcast as you know, you figured it out like podcasting secret sauce, man, you get to talk to all the experts and all the authors you are wanting to, it’s a whole nother degree of learning. So I was a generalist, but I was going pretty deep on all the different topics and actually learning about it early in the morning and in the evenings and then actually practicing it in the daytime. 

 

The peep toe generalist who is actually pretty good at a lot of different things can actually create more synergy across the channels. But it’s a lot harder to do the one major problem I found it’s actually finding it’s way easier to get the results you want as a generalist, the one problem with the generalist route that I’ve run into is that it’s hard to become known for something it’s so much harder to brand yourself around, I’m the frickin this guy, you like Frick, then that’s I’ve jumped. 

 

I’ve tried to reposition my personal brand probably like five times in the last seven years. So hard. I was gonna be the nonprofit marketer, then the school marketer, then the b2b marketer, and the audience growth guy. I don’t know, I’ve tried so many different angles, honestly. But I do add, I love learning everything just like being obsessive about things. 

 

I don’t know if I have a good answer to this. But there’s definitely an advantage to knowing how to do it all well, and how to piece it all together. I find that the internet marketing community is fantastic at this. They know how to write good copy, they know how to set up sequences, and they know how to build websites, they might not do them all well, but they know how to get fricking results for and set up the whole funnel from targeting to fulfillment fan like I love that community, their stuff looks a little janky sometimes because they need to hire a graphic designer, but it’s still good. 

 

And they suck at branding. But you know, you gotta have some weak points somewhere. Absolutely. And the people that end up getting the farthest as far as building a following and a brand online are usually the specialist because people know why to follow them. So that’s the advantage of that side. Right? 

 

If you want to be an entrepreneur, better to be a generalist. If you want to become a thought leader in a certain space with your brand and become the highest-paid person in a company, probably better to be the specialist. When I say specialist, I mean like that classic T-shaped marketer where you have a broad base and go really deep on one subject. 

 

Like that person is going to get that person is going to have the highest paid salary and has gotten, like get more followers on social media being known for that one thing, then trying to be everything to everybody. So that’s my nuanced answer to that question.

 

Kenny Soto 9:57  

To get more context on you, Dan, can you tell me What sweet fish is and what you do for them?

 

Dan Sanchez 10:03  

Absolutely. Sweet fish is a b2b podcast agency. And we help and essentially generate revenue for all these b2b companies through their podcasts, they hire us, and we help them launch and run their podcasts. I’m the director of audience growth, though I’ve had it’s a, it’s a startup, a larger startup, I mean, we’re probably doing 5 million this year. And I’ve worn lots of hats. I’ve been the director of marketing, and I’ve been in charge of CX for a short bit actually managing all the clients and producers. I’ve been a full-time evangelist, which is kind of where I’m at. 

 

Now, I’m pretty much a full-time evangelist, because I’m the one person on the team who’s actually done a lot of marketing in my background. And since we’re marketing the marketers, it helps to be a marketer, I know how to talk to them. But I’m also probably 20% of my time used to coach clients, on how to improve their podcast, how to map it to their strategy, and how to get the most out of their podcast to, you know, grow, grow revenue for their teams. 

 

So that’s kind of what I do now. But as an evangelist, I’m creating lots of content. I’m big on LinkedIn, Rob, spending a lot of time engaging with people and posting content, or my own personal brand on behalf of sweet fish. So I’ve probably generated about a million dollars worth of revenue for sweet fish just for my own LinkedIn stuff. Which is cool. But at the same time, it’s sweet, that sweet fish lets me do it because I get to take it with me from like, my net, whatever the next stage of my journey is from sweet fish. And I’m pretty happy, sweet fish. 

 

But that’s a personal brand I get to take with me, but it’s also been good for sweet fish. Now, I’m actually working on a lot of blogs and podcasts. Yeah, so then my next six months are going to be not writing blogs, but essentially outlining and creating videos for blogs to writers to write to because I have a hypothesis that the next wave of SEO is going to be actual expertise in the blogs versus just hiring writers to write about and regurgitating what they’re reading online, which is why the blog has become very commodity content. 

 

It’s all the same stuff. You go to Google best dates for married couples. In Nashville. It’s the same crap over and over again because no one who’s actually been on dates in Nashville has written the content, right? It’s all people who just regurgitate each other and just put the easy ideas. Same thing for every niche, how to run a marathon. 

 

And the first tip is to drink frickin water. You’re like, oh, my gosh, drink water, like a doe? How much water like, tell me something from somebody who’s actually run a marathon, this person hasn’t run one. So I’m gonna be focusing a lot on trying to create that content and for b2b growth, our show it’s gonna be a platform. Anyway, I could go on about that. But that’s what I do.

 

Kenny Soto 12:49  

Know that that’s a thesis that I want to tap into, because it’s something that I’ve been thinking, about as an SEO specialist, myself, it’s really thinking not just with SEO and written content, but content overall, really diving into the fact that there’s too much out there already, right? If someone has taken their time and decided to read something, versus Listening or watching it on YouTube, Tiktok, etc, then you’ve already surpassed a huge barrier of entry. You shouldn’t waste that time that you’ve been granted from the user and have a how-to blah, blah, blah, article, because then they’re gonna bounce right away. Yeah, and yeah, and that’s a waste of time.

 

Dan Sanchez 13:30  

But they did better than what was there before, which was very short. Like 10 years ago, the web was just full of like, 200 to 300-word blogs. They’re very short answers that hardly even cover the subject. Now, if I Google what is content marketing, I’m gonna find HubSpot who’s written a frickin 3000-word article. It’s a very thorough coverage of content marketing. 

 

But it probably wasn’t written by somebody who understands all the nuances of content marketing. I mean, maybe, in that case, they do because it’s probably a blogger who is literally doing content marketing by writing the blog posts, but in most examples, it’s like these articles are being written for SEO, who haven’t actually done the thing. 

 

And I think there are so many places where I’m searching and I’m like, this, this has the answer, but it’s not good enough. So you end up going to YouTube, where you can verify the person’s actually done the thing simple like lawn mowers like you’re looking for the best lawn mowers for your type of grass. In the blog article, you can tell someone hasn’t actually tried it or has done it for your type of grass. They’re just giving generic advice. 

 

But the YouTuber you can verify because they’re frickin standing on the lawn and it looks like your lawn. And they’re like, here’s my five mowers that I’ve tried and they have the five frickin mowers you’re like, okay, then they probably have a pretty good idea because actually I can tell they’ve done it all. I think the same thing just needs to happen for blogs, some people still want to read rather than watch or listen, lights, that’s not gonna go away. 

 

Some people just want to glance over it. So there’s a huge opportunity for new articles to be written to one-up the ones that were done, which were good and better than what was before. are. But there’s a whole new opportunity for helpfulness in content writing, I think it can be done. I’m going to be doing it with video. 

 

But I’m gonna record a three to five-minute video of just talking. And then that will be the Kickstarter for the writer who’s then going to write, I essentially give them the outline and the video, and then they fill in some spots. But I do a lot of outlining to make sure they stay on track. And I’ll be the expert giving the guidance on the topics. That’s my game plan.

 

Kenny Soto 15:25  

No, I mean, that makes total sense. Now shifting to podcasting for b2b businesses. I’m assuming it’s appropriate and correct me if I’m wrong. For any b2b business, doing a podcast the challenge is knowing when is the right stage for the company to actually introduce that idea, correct?

 

Dan Sanchez 15:45  

No, I would, I would start it from day one. Why a podcast is like a Swiss army knife and can accomplish so many different objectives. I’m actually in the process of starting my own company, and it’ll be a while before it gets off the ground. And may become my full-time gig. But I’m just starting it and I won’t say what niche it is. I’ll save that for someone at the time. But the first thing I’m doing is starting a podcast. 

 

And it’s a b2b company, I’m selling to other businesses. But honestly, even though I know the industry really well, I still have so much to learn. So good entrepreneurs spend the most time with customers talking to them, like getting to know what they are thinking, and what they are. What do they think at night? What are they? What are they hearing? What are they seeing? What are they talking about? What keeps them up at night? What’re the wins they’ve had recently, and what are the things that they are struggling with? What are they hoping for in the future for their companies, you don’t know until you go and actually talk to them. 

 

And a lot of marketers talk about talking to customers, but very few do a podcast that makes it easy for you to make a podcast that’s all about your customer’s favorite things. Just make a dish and call it you can name it after their job title. If you’re going after graphic designers in I don’t know, churches, right? Or large churches that hire graphic designers and creative directors or whatever. And that’s your niche, you’re gonna sell software to them. 

 

Well go start the church creative director, or the creative ministry or something like that, and then just interview them and talk to them. I guarantee you that after 30, 40, and 50 episodes, you’re gonna have a much better idea of who they are, what they’re doing, what they’re thinking about, and understand the trends between them all. So you can be much better, it’s essentially doing what they call product marketing because you’re getting to know your customers. 

 

And then you might even be like, Hey, we’re working on something that you think would be helpful. And they can give you feedback. But you have to spend time with customers and this remote world, having them jump on for an interview. And it’s also a double, double when you get freaking good content out of it, too. And then you can repurpose that content. So it’s like, almost creating this marketing machine before you even launched, you could do it from the very beginning, from the first inception. If I think I want to get into this niche and understand it better. 

 

Let me start a podcast and start interviewing people. Because hardly anybody says no to being on a podcast until they’re so famous. And they’re getting so many requests that they start to start saying no to something most people say yes to. So it’s a really fun hack that you can do at the very beginning of launching, and then it carries all the way through because you never, you never outgrow talking to customers. 

 

In the b2b space, if you have a large ticket item like a high ARR annual revenue you get from whatever they’re paying you for like you’re offering consulting services at half a million a year, then a lot of that game is relational. And, but those people that have that kind of budget, and that kind of decision-making power aren’t easy to get a hold of, you can’t they’re not gonna give you 15 minutes for coffee, you know, but they’ll probably give you a whole frickin hour. 

 

It’d be on a podcast, which is just insane, insane, right? You want to talk to a venture capitalist and build a relationship with them. They won’t give you five minutes. But they’ll come and speak on your podcast, funny hack. That’s what the founder of sweet fish media discovered early on with podcasts. He wrote a book about it called content-based networking, a fantastic book on this process of using content collaboration, like a podcast you could do with a YouTube channel or blog in order to build relationships with your ideal buyers. 

 

And that’s why podcasting is such a great tool. Now, there are a lot of other things you can still do with podcasting, but those are some of my favorites research and building relationships with ideal buyers. So I’m looking to play all the way through.

 

Kenny Soto 19:35  

I’m a big fan of learning from other people’s mistakes. And I’m certain that through sweet fish, you’ve seen clients who’ve already attempted creating a podcast and they’re going to because they’re not hitting the mark. What are some common mistakes that you see b2b businesses make when they’re first starting out creating a podcast?

 

Dan Sanchez 19:55  

Gosh, the biggest mistake is they didn’t start at all. So many people talk about it. Um, I actually would rather see them start and make something bad, than just not start because you can, honestly, you could just do it a little bit better every time. So what if you don’t have a microphone like if you have a MacBook, the microphones are kind of like good enough most of the time, in most situations that are on your phone for getting a free anchor account, you can record right there, just push the button talk, like grabbing your most frequently asked questions from your sales team and just answer one, boom, episode one. 

 

And then the titles. The answer to the question, is like it’s the punch line, right? Bam, easy, easy content, that becomes good sales enablement content that people can listen to, you can use it for lots of different purposes. It’s just so easy to get started, but very few people do. And of course, some companies are big enough that they have a certain brand image to maintain. So they don’t want to launch rough and dirty, they will have to start at a certain level. 

 

And that’s when they hired companies like ours to start at that level. So they have great cover art, and they have thought through the premise for their show, and the host is ready and all that kind of stuff. So there’s for sure that too, but the most common mistakes that I’m like, Hey, these are the things you need to upgrade is usually doing more episodes, they’re not doing it frequently enough. And then they’re not usually not promoting it like in the easy ways. 

 

Like, like most why I went and researched like my coworker and I looked up 500 b2b SaaS companies, services, and software companies. Most of them didn’t have podcasts, probably like, I’d say about 30% of that 30%, half of them didn’t even link to it on their website, I had to find it through Google. Like they didn’t need like on their top, they have a dedicated section for resources, you’re like, great, it’s probably under Resources, blogs, webinars, white papers, they must not have a podcast. 

 

Otherwise, this would be where it lives. And then you Google it. So and So a company, podcast, bam, there it is your like, you didn’t even link it to your homepage, let alone feed it into your blog, put it on social like no wonder why you did the podcast and gave up on it like you just never promoted it. So that’s honestly a super common mistake. And it’s amazing to me, they do it, but they do. 

 

And then probably the next most common mistake that I see is, as far as the interview goes, not getting to some really solid meat with the guests that they’re having. Especially if you’re talking to high-level people, they tend to stay very ethereal. But what we find creates better content is getting into the very practical. So you can do that some ways with the host like, hey, if we’re talking about content marketing, and about how effective it is, you could ask you as a host, you could just go over and ask them like, Oh, cool. 

 

So what’s the number one? What’s the most common thing you think people need to start doing with their content marketing? Like this week? What’s the most common thing everyone needs to start doing now? What do they need to stop doing that they’re all doing? Or if you want to make it even a little bit more? Interesting, right? Because there are a lot of talking head podcasts out there. 

 

Another common question we’ll use to try to find an interesting point of view from the guest is what’s a commonly held belief in your industry that you passionately disagree with. And that’s a great way to pull out like a point of view that they have, that’s going to be unique, that’s going to make for a better episode for you. 

 

So if you’re always trying to think of the audience while you’re still building relationships with the guests, but if you think about the audience, and how to keep it interesting for them, that’s something I usually coach goes through is how to make it how to bring out the unique perspectives of your guests, and how to get them to say things that are very practical that they can take away and execute that week.

 

Kenny Soto 23:48  

How should clients evaluate a podcasting agency?

 

Dan Sanchez 24:04  

See, we did a long blog post on this a long time ago, like trying to think of all the points we brought up in it. I think one of the best ways to evaluate a podcasting agency is if they’re actually doing the things they’re saying, they’re recommending to you. Like if they’re saying do X, are they doing X? Do they have their own podcast? How big is that show? Is it a popular show? Like are they doing the thing which is a common agency thing? Most agencies are starving bakers, right? They’re feeding everybody but themselves. 

 

Yeah. So it’s kind of a good indicator if they’re doing it themselves, or at least attempting to do it like not everybody’s going to have a really big show. Ours is b2b growth. Our shows are big, you know, it’s bad 4 million downloads in 2000 episodes, but partly part of that was just because we started way earlier and have been doing it for seven years. So it’s a big show, you know, it gets 160 K downloads a month. It’s a lot. 

 

But it’s also because it was early, like being early to a platform is a big deal. You in b2b, you don’t even necessarily have to be nearly that big in order to have a big impact because 300 of the right people, one of those people, if they’re one of if one of those people has the ability to write a 50k, check or a 500k check, it’s kind of a big deal. Like you just don’t need as many people in b2b, that’s one of my favorite things about b2b versus b2c, it only takes one sale to make a big difference. Or a few sales versus like, selling pillows you like, gotta sell a lot of pillows in order to make a big freakin difference. 

 

I feel bad for the guys at my pillow. Oh my god, I gotta sell a lot of pillows too and then keep selling them because the pillow is not even something you buy a lot. So it’s like, ah, that would suck. I would hate that business. You gotta convince new people to come and buy your pillow. And then maybe 10 years later, they buy another one hopefully.

 

Kenny Soto 25:53  

When it comes to measuring impact, an impact can be revenue, but there are so many things outside of revenue that matter. How do you measure the impact of a podcast?

 

Dan Sanchez 26:09  

The easiest way to measure the impact of a podcast is simply to ask the like the easiest way that anybody could like literally do this week, if you have a podcast, and you have in a b2b space, you have some kind of like, some kind of mechanism on your website that indicates that they’re going to sales. 

 

They requested the free consultation, they booked a demo, whatever that mechanism is that requested sales literature of some kind, or asked for the free quote, whatever that is if you just have an open field text that says, How did you hear about us? Do not give them options. Let them write it in. If your podcast is making a difference, they will say the podcast they’ll probably say a couple of things they usually do. Because it’s usually a combination of channels. People are like you remember the ones that have had been impacted by and they might be like, Oh, I found you on LinkedIn. And I’ll listen to your podcast. 

 

That’s what they’ll tell you as they’re coming in to ask the boss buying questions. And then if you want to go to the next step, how many of the people mentioned podcast converted to revenue, and then you can map some revenue to it? It’s probably the most quantitative way you could do it. But you have to take a more qualitative answer in doing it and not let hotspots like or any of the CRM tools like reporting metrics tell you because they’ll never HubSpot can’t track that Salesforce can’t track that none of them can track that because there’s this gate called Apple, Google and Spotify who don’t give you that kind of information. 

 

Actually, there are ways to get the information, but it’s not as reliable. But there are ways to get the information that I found out recently, I was like, Okay, there’s some ad retargeting plays you can do with IP addresses and stuff that I found out. So but only big players can even afford to play with that kind of stuff. So

 

Kenny Soto 27:55  

Dan, I have two more questions for you. When it comes to seven years of podcasting, what are some key takeaways that you learned about b2b growth from the great b2b growth show?

 

Dan Sanchez 28:13  

As someone who’s a host, I mean, there are 2000 episodes of those podcasts that I’ve done probably 200 of those. So I’ve done probably 10% of the episodes of b2b growth. So we’ve had many hosts on it. One of the biggest things that I’ve learned is the thing that we call the Oprah effect. And you’ve probably found it, you’ve even mentioned it in your own thing, like when you’re the host of a show. 

 

People see you differently, which is really funny to me, because people, you’re just they’re asking questions, but people often walk away thinking like, Oh, you’re really good at this. You’re really knowledgeable. You’re like, attack. I just asked questions. I don’t even share what I knew. But they have this perspective, even the guests, but the audience has it even more. And if you think about it, Oprah as we call it, the Oprah effect because Oprah is the frickin master of this man. 

 

She’s just a journalist, but she interviews all these awesome people. And over the course of decades, people are like Oprah as amazing. Ah. So it’s the Oprah effect, like the impact of being a host of your own media channel has that effect on you, and people’s perceptions of you change in a good way. 

 

And a very profitable way to if you have something to sell them later, because that positions you as an expert on the thing that you’re interviewing them about, even if you’re not. But of course, you will be after enough interviews because you’ve talked to 100 or 200. Experts in the field practitioners, authors, and thought leaders on it right? So you will be this. It’s a great way to learn. 

 

The other thing about podcasts is I don’t know about you, but like, I’m definitely naturally introverted, man. Like, but I want to go and meet people I want to build friends I write books like Never Eat Alone, which talk about the value You have networking and how it’s so good to know people. And we all know the same. Like, it’s not about what you know, but who you know. And you’re just like, oh, but how do I meet more new people that make them like me? Podcast, freaking podcast is the easiest thing. 

 

Because you, you now have a mechanism to go and be like, Hey, I’d like to talk to so and so. So now I can confidently just shoot them a DM and be like, Hey, I would love to talk to you on our podcast about this thing that you’re good at. interested? Sure. Now all of a sudden, you’re having an hour-long conversation with that person, you do that enough and have them back up once or twice, and then you stay up, stay up to date with them and socialize and even meet them in person. 

 

All of a sudden, you have so many more friends, you have a whole network of people that you actually like and care about. And they know and like you because you’ve talked shop with them. And I’ve swapped some maybe some personal things with you. I don’t know. It’s just a fantastic way to build a network and make it more fun at work. 

 

Yeah, because a lot of meaning for me comes from the strength of the relationships I have. And even though I work remotely, I feel like I’ve never had more strong relationships with people that I’m working with regularly because of podcasting. And so and what I do with LinkedIn, so that was the second thing.

 

Kenny Soto 31:14  

Yeah, I can attest to that. Because ever since starting this show, the goal was to learn that was the goal. But one of the results that I found is that I’ll apply for a job. And not only is the conversion rate higher, I actually get to the first round interview. But their first-round interview is much smoother because they’re not asking me about my experience. 

 

The resume speaks for that. But at the same time, they’ve listened to at least one episode of my podcast. So it’s more so just trying to figure out, do I understand the business, which is a whole other conversation. Now, so when.

 

Dan Sanchez 31:48  

I think this is the biggest freaking hack for getting the job your dream? Yeah, so crazy how much impact it has just by sitting there and talking to wherever the hiring managers are, doesn’t even matter what industry it is, it could be tech could be health, as long as it doesn’t like as long as you have the right credentials, like in health and law, whatever, but or engineering. 

 

But if you don’t need those, then it’s just about who you know. And podcasting is the way in which people build trust, and they hire people they trust. And the way you build trust is by spending time with them like this.

 

Kenny Soto 32:17  

Exactly. Exactly. Then, if you had access to the time machine, and you can go back about 10 years knowing everything you know, right now, how would you specifically accelerate the speed of your career?

 

Dan Sanchez 32:30  

Dude, a podcast is easy. I’ve thought about this so many times, like, look, I started with art, and then went to design, and then web design, and I literally did every other freaking channel known to digital marketing. I went and tried to master all of them. I built massive, massive traffic on blogs with SEO, and I have built some of the craziest weird email marketing automation funnels that you can find. 

 

And they were good. I did landing page split testing, copywriting, and designed brochures, and did some basics like PR campaigns and crisis communication. Like I did all this stuff. And the podcasting with the last one I figured out so pissed because I wish it was the first one I figured out because it’s not. I don’t know what it is. But it seems like it’s going to be hard, but it’s so much easier. It’s like it’s a zoom, like a zoom, you just record the Zoom call. 

 

You don’t even have to edit it for it’s just like downloading the recording and publish on the anchor for freaking free. would have been the hack of all hacks to the career I like. I would like I’m pretty happy with where I’m at now and where I’m going. But man, I couldn’t be in totally different places because of this thing. had totally different job opportunities because of it. 

 

That was one thing I could go back to. And I could go back to my 20-year-old self. It’d be like a StartUp podcast, figure it out. That’s all I’m telling you. No, no. Oh, well, at least I’m in the game now.

 

Kenny Soto 33:53  

Yeah, that’s all that matters. Dan, if anyone wants to find you online, where can they go to say hi.

 

Dan Sanchez 33:58  

Through LinkedIn, I’m all over LinkedIn. So linkedin.com/i n slash digital marketing, Dan, connect with me. I’d love to hear from people or if you want to learn, find my other social sites or my kid’s book on marketing. Interestingly, or like all that stuff on my blog. You can find me at Dan chas.com.

 

Kenny Soto 34:17  

Awesome. Thanks, Dan, for your time today and thank you to the listener for listening to another episode of the people’s Digital Marketing podcast. And if you haven’t done so, please rate us on Apple and Spotify. And as always, I hope you have a great week. 

 

Bye.